


Android's Dungeon, or, the Untitled Hiatus Project

by xxxintothedarknessxxx



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Hiatus, M/M, Post-Hiatus, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 08:17:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11204046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxxintothedarknessxxx/pseuds/xxxintothedarknessxxx
Summary: They're not Fall Out Boy without Joe.





	Android's Dungeon, or, the Untitled Hiatus Project

Andy's sitting alone in his bedroom a week after the funeral when he hears a knock on the door. He doesn’t want to see anyone. Well, he wants to see Joe, and that’s never going to happen again.  
'Go. Away.'  
'Please, Andy? It's kind of important.' It's Matt at the door.  
'Fine, Matt. What do you want?' He walks in and sits on the foot of the drummer's bed.  
'It's about Joe...I don't mean to be insensitive, but the guy was into some stuff, had some secrets. I just, I'm not judging, but maybe he wouldn't want his parents to find that stuff, and they ARE coming tomorrow.'   
'What? What are you talking about?'  
'Cigarettes weren't the only thing he smoked.'  
'Oh. Right, that, yeah, thanks man, I'll clean it out.' He goes downstairs and gets a garbage bag from under the sink, takes it up to Joe's room.  
'You want some help?' Matt puts a supportive hand on his shoulder.  
'No...thanks but I have to do this myself.' Matt understood, backing away and closing the door behind him. This is the first time Andy's been here since he found the clothes Joe once joked he was going to end up being buried in. He wished desperately that it hadn’t come true.

Andy is all business, tossing the room without really tossing the room. He searches the dresser, under the mattress (he made sure not to disturb the sheets. They're still folded back, ready to climb in, just the way Joe left them), and a few of Joe's other hiding places. In the end, he finds Joe's ‘water pipe’ in the bedside cabinet, swipes the skin mag from the top, takes the weed from the desk drawer, and grabs two rollies from the bookshelf that could have been anything. He puts it all into the bag, and stores it in the back of his own closet, down the hall. He's pretty sure he found everything.

He doesn't sleep that night; thinking of how this time tomorrow, everything of Joe's will be gone, just like the man himself.  
It's the break of dawn when he sneaks into Joe's room for the last time and sits down on the bed. He hesitates, then picks up Joe's pillow and holds it to himself, burying his face in it and breathing him in. As soon as his olfactory senses kick in, tears sting his eyes and his shoulders start to shake. He curls up and sobs into the pillow, using it to drown out the sound of his cries. This is how Matt finds him hours later, still shaking, holding the pillow to his face.

'Andy, are you in here-oh. Joe's parents are here, do you need a minute?'  
'No, it’s okay,' Andy says, sitting up, wiping at his eyes, 'let them in.' Matt lets the door swing open, and there's Joe's mom and dad. They hug each other, they ask after each other, they give the same response ‘Doing my best, but it’s hard, you know’.

'I'll be in the kitchen.' Matt left and Andy was sure he was boxing up Joe's alcohol from on top of the fridge. Andy returned to holding Joe's pillow, then realized what he was doing and leaned it back against the headboard.

'I...I loved Joe. I really did. I just, I wanted you to know that a lot of people loved him.' Andy tried to comfort Joe's parents as much as he could without outing Joe posthumously. He hadn't told his parents yet that they were together, just that he was moving in with Andy to Fuck City, starting a new band with Andy, moving to Portland with Andy, would do anything for Andy.  
'I know. He loved you too. He was always talking about you, 'Andy this', 'Hurley that', 'Andrew's being a pain in my ass'. Always said with affection, of course.' Joe's mom replied, 'It was so comforting to know that he had such a great friend out here, that you didn't go your separate ways after the band split up.'  
'I'd have followed him to the end of the world.' Andy confessed.  
'And he you. I guess that's what he did.' Andy hugged Joe's mom again and then left to get boxes.

When he returned, they were packing Joe's suitcase with the clothes from the closet.  
'Hey, uhm, do you think I could, maybe keep that?' He says as Joe's dad pulls his favorite jacket from the hanger. Denim, leather sleeves, lots of pins and patches. 'I-it was his favorite.' Joe's dad hands it over and Andy puts it on. It is way too big, but he doesn't care.  
'Thank you.' He thumbs over the careful stitching of the Knives patch that Joe only put on, like, a month ago, and pulls it shut around himself. He feels a lump in the pocket, so he puts his hand in and hopes its nothing incriminating as he removes the object. It's a...ring box? He opens it. A simple silver band perfectly polished, but also very old. He digs into the other pocket and comes up with a note. He opens it, Joe's parents' eyes frozen on him. He reads it to himself.

_Andrew,_

_I've only known you for the past 8 years. It's hard to believe because it feels like I've known you all my life. Harder still, is to believe that I only fell in love with you a year ago, after we'd all split up and it felt like the world was ending. You kept me on my axis, even when you fell off yours, and I swore I would never let that happen again._

_That day, when you looked at me and just told me how you felt, as though it should have been the most obvious thing in the world, made me so grateful that we pulled the plug on the band, because that was what brought you to me, and me to you, never mind the fact that we were living together and planning on starting our own band._

_I have always loved you, you know, just a little bit. This dorky, bespectacled drummer guy with more morals and convictions than I could ever live by, ever since he rocked up to audition with no shirt on but plenty of ink. Who would never look at me as more than a friend, a band mate. That 18 year old kid who partied too hard and could never be half the man he was._

_But somehow, in all of this, I got lucky, I got so incredibly lucky, and he fell in love with me. He makes me better, every day, and loves me exactly as I am. I want to build a family and spend every day with him for the rest of my life, so I'm going to push my luck again, and ask Andrew John Hurley, will you marry me?_

He'd been crying as he read, but at the last line, Andy officially lost it. He sank to his knees and sobbed, loud, heart-wrenching sobs. He wiped furiously at his eyes with the back of his hands, which were occupied with the ring box and the written proposal, but it did no good; the tears kept falling. Joe's mom dropped down beside him and tried to comfort him, but she was crying too. In the end, it took a few minutes for Andy to be calm enough to explain. He silently hoped that Joe would forgive him for what he was about to say, wherever he might be.

'He-he loved me. We were in love. He was going to tell you this weekend.' They were supposed to be going back to Chicago to visit Joe's family. Joe had been planning to come out then. Andy held up the ring box and the note.  
'He was going to ask me to marry him...I never got to tell him yes.' Andy went back to wiping at his eyes and he showed Joe's parents the note and the ring.

'I'm sorry he never got to tell you about us. He always wanted you to know. A couple more months, I probably would have been asking you for his hand.' Joe was very old fashioned sometimes.  
'You were going to propose? To my son? Who was gay?' Joe's dad was shocked.  
'He never put it that way, but yes, sir. I wanted to marry him, I was just waiting to ask you first. I guess he beat both of us to it. I like to think we would have adopted a kid or two in the next couple years, but I guess I'll never know.'  
'Marriage? Kids? That's all I ever wanted for him. I suppose it doesn't matter if it's with a woman or a man, does it?' His mom quipped.

They spent most of the day packing Joe's things, discussing his relationship with Andy and how much he loved the band and how much he used to talk about them all to one another. They told Andy he should keep the ring, Joe's grandfathers'.  
'Are you sure? This is a family heirloom.'  
'You were-he wanted you to be...his family. He'd want you to have it.' Joe's dad was incredibly sincere as he shut the ring box and handed it back.  
'Thank you. I'll look after it.' Dammit, could his eyes just STOP stinging? There were no tears left to cry. He was empty, and dehydrated. He hugged them both and promised to stay in touch and visit soon before they left. The moment they were gone, he went into the kitchen. He put the ring and the note on the island and turned to get a glass of water from the tap.

'What's this?' He turned back and looked at Matt who was looking more than a little confused by the tiny blue box.  
'I asked if I could keep his jacket. That was in the pockets.' Andy had not taken it off. He was probably going to keep it on until he died, or the last thread fell off his shoulders, whichever came first.  
'He wanted to marry you?'  
'And have kids. We were going to be a family.' A grin flashed across Andy's face for a moment, before he started weeping again. 'It was all I ever wanted and I never told him.' Matt walks over and pulls Andy to him, cupping his neck, rubbing with his thumb. Were it anyone but his best friend, Andy would find it too intimate.

'But he knew, he did, that's why he was going to ask you. He told me...for what it's worth, I knew the first time that I met the man he was head over for you.' Andy honest to god chuckles.  
'But that was years before we...you knew. All that time?'  
'I knew you loved him, too. I just thought that you were trying not to see it. Band dynamics and all that. Then he asked me how he should propose to you and if he was allowed.'  
'You asshole! You should have warned me.' There's no anger in Andy's words as he playfully punches his friend. 'What did you tell him?' He was trying to imagine Joe actually going to Matt, all dressed up and proper and asking for Andy's hand. He giggled.  
'I told him he could but it better be worth all the waiting you two have done just to be together. He promised that it would.' And it was, or it would have been, had Joe still been alive to do it.

Andy slinks off to bed early that night, sets the ring box and note on the nightstand, the jacket on a chair. Suddenly, the fact that they kept separate beds seems like the stupidest thing in the world. If they'd shared the same bed, it would still smell like Joe. He grabs the jacket and puts it on trying to imagine Joe was still there to hold him. The knowledge of never having to doubt that Joe loved him was what helped him fall asleep. He wondered if he would tell Pete and Patrick. As he drifted off, he knew that he would.

In the coming weeks, when he missed Joe more and more, he found himself digging into the trash bag in his closet for the weed. He hated weed, and the smell of it, but it also smelled like Joe, and that was what he loved. He'd been meaning to get rid of it, he was, he just...couldn't. Not yet.

One day, he braved emptying the bag onto the closet floor and closing himself in. He picked up Joe's teddy bear, the one he’d swiped off the desk and remembered how it came to be: Joe's mom had been packing up a box of childhood memories to send him when he was missing home, and she'd called to tell him the dog had got to goldfish, which for some reason was what he'd named his stuffy. He'd been three. He'd also never said he was sad, but Andy could tell. When the box arrived, there were some photos of Joe with it, and Andy had been able to get almost an exact replica made. His face when Andy gave it to him...it had lit up like a Christmas tree. That face, Andy would never forget.

Suddenly it was like the wound opened up again, as fresh and new as the moment he heard 'Mr. Trohman's injuries were catastrophic...there was nothing more we could do. I'm very sorry.'

He clutched the stuffy to himself and rocked back and forth in the tiny expanse of the closet and cried himself out.  
'Who gets hit by a bus? Who actually dies that way? That stupid prick, I told him not to go. Why couldn't you just listen to me, just once, Joe, why?' They'd been out and about in Portland, walking through the city, Joe listening to his iPod on full blast “you’re going to damage your hearing” and they'd been waiting to cross a road. It was empty, but the light was red, so he told Joe not to cross. He'd laughed; said nothing was coming so it was fine, and ran out onto the street. The bus had come from nowhere. It had hit him before he saw it coming. Andy, on the other hand, had not been so lucky. He saw everything. 'Joe, look out!' Joe hadn’t heard, and had run straight into the bus' path. He had responded to most risks in life with 'well, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow'; for him to die that way was the most painful irony.

When he finished, Andy felt a little lighter, as though maybe it were possible to be less 'not okay', that maybe someday even thinking of Joe wouldn't hurt quite this much. It was the break he needed to remember there was light at the end of the tunnel, even if he couldn't see it now. He packed away Joe's things, stashed the bag right at the back, and walked out of the closet to collapse into bed.

 

Tomorrow was a new day.

Or, it was, until he woke up and couldn’t find Joe’s proposal anywhere. It was his final words to Andy, one last declaration of his undying love, a love that was barely old enough to walk, let alone run down the aisle, which Andy liked to imagine he would have done, full pelt, all ‘let’s skip to the “I do’s” and cut to the rest of our life’, and now it was gone. He searched the room ceiling to the floor and the closet, including the trash bag, and in every pocket in the jacket. It was gone, completely. Nowhere to be found.

He turned all of Fuck City on its head that day trying to locate that pathetic piece of creased lined paper with the shitty blue pen that had both dried out mid word and leaked onto the page in Joe’s tidy script with many a correction made. Not having found it, he was a complete mess by the time Matt got home.  
‘Hey, man, what’s wrong?’ If he hadn’t cut his hair so short, he’d literally have been tearing it out.  
‘I can’t find it. Joe’s letter, the proposal, I, I don’t know where it is and I’ve turned this whole place upside down, multiple times and I just can’t find it. It isn’t here. It’s the last thing he wrote for me and I’ve lost it.’  
‘No, no you didn’t lose it. I’ve got it. I wasn’t supposed to be this long, but I ran into an old friend and time got away. I was getting it framed for you because I know that you’ll read it a thousand times and wear the paper out.’ He pulled it out of his backpack and handed it over. It was indeed framed beautifully, glass polished to a shine.  
‘More than a thousand. I’m gonna read it every day for the rest of my life. Thank you. Thank you so much, I thought it was gone forever.’ He crushed the breath out of Matt right then, though if you asked, he’d say he was giving him a hug.

‘No problem. I probably should have told you I was taking it. I didn’t mean for you to freak out. Also, it’s scanned into my laptop on the off chance that it got damaged getting it laminated…in the end I decided it wasn’t worth the risk.’ Andy, in the end, decided that while he wanted to be really mad, nothing happened to the note so it really didn’t matter. It was an extremely kind gesture.  
‘I’m really sorry you didn’t get to say yes. I can’t think of a couple that just ‘go’ the way you two did.’  
‘Me too. I still can’t believe he asked your permission.’ Matt smiled at the thought.  
‘I can’t believe he said he’d give me two sheep and a goat for you.’ Matt liked to kid.  
‘I’m worth at least a couple of cows!’ Andy could always find a way to kid him right back.  
‘He was kind of old-fashioned, wasn’t he?’  
‘Sometimes, yeah.’ The first real date they had, Joe brought flowers when he came to pick Andy up. Not for Andy, but for Matt. ‘Trying to impress the future-in-laws?’ He had joked. ‘Perhaps…should I leave a calling card?’ For a moment he thought Joe had been serious. Then he realized it was April 1st. ‘Very funny Joe.’ Then he had taken Andy’s arm in his and called out to Matt, ‘I’ll have him home by midnight.’ Matt had explicitly told him not to. Joe, always one to impress the parents, kept him out all night, and they made out like a couple of teenagers under the stars. Andy was certainly not complaining.  
‘The flowers.’ They said in perfect unison, cracking a smile.  
‘Oh my god, here, I have the photo from that night.’ Matt pulled out his mobile, proving that he did, in fact, have the embarrassing parental ‘first-date’ picture of the two of them, standing by the front door, dressed up in nice clothes with their hair combed neatly, Joe’s arm around Andy’s shoulders like they were in the 7th grade. Another idea of Joe’s.  
‘God I loved him.’  
‘Yeah, I know.’  
‘Sometimes I miss him so much I can’t breathe, Matt.’ He literally could not breathe then as Matt crushed him to his chest.  
‘I know, Hurley, I know. One day I swear it won’t hurt so much.’  
‘When?’  
‘I don’t know.’  
‘I wanted to keep the proposal to myself, but his parents were right there so I never had a shot. Then I left the ring box on the counter, and…I think I need to tell the guys. I’ve been holding out, but I think maybe it’s time.’ He fingered the ring, hanging off a chain around his neck like it was second nature. Remembering the existence of the ring though was always bittersweet. Sweet because of everything it represented, bitter for everything it never got to be. Part of Andy wished he was able to wear the damn thing properly, but it wouldn’t feel right knowing Joe hadn’t gotten to propose.  
‘You want me to be there?’  
‘You could tell them about him asking for your blessing.’ Andy added, a silent ‘thank you’ for Matt’s support. When Andy called Pete and Patrick and told them he needed to see them, it came as no surprise to Matt when they arrived late that night.  
‘We got the first flight out.’ Patrick explained at Andy’s incredulous look.  
‘You said that you needed us.’ Pete shrugged like that was the only explanation he needed to get on a plane at a moment’s notice and fly up the coast.  
‘Come in, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’ So they did, dumping their bags in a corner of the living room. Matt disappeared to get drinks.

‘So, what did you want to tell us?’ Pete’s exterior is much calmer than whatever is really going on in his head. He’s bouncing a knee, trying not to freak. He plays back the phone call in his head. ‘I need to talk to you. In person. It’s important. Trick, too. Can you come up to Portland?’ Well, that wasn’t usually a good thing. Especially if it’s one of them talking.

‘I was cleaning Joe’s room out with his mom and dad, and I found this.’ Andy takes off the chain, feels naked without it as he passes it to his former band mates. ‘It was his grandfather’s, and there was a note.’  
‘Okay. What did this note say?’ Patrick remained as calm and leveled as he had always been in a crisis. Did this even qualify?  
‘It wasn’t a su-‘ Pete cuts himself off. That was not a thought he intended to voice, and if it was a suicide note, did he really want to know?  
‘His death was an accident. I was there, remember?’ Andy would. He would remember, every time he closed his eyes right until his dying day. Pete had the grace to look ashamed.  
‘I’m sorry, man, of course it was an accident. Joe wouldn’t have done that, no way. I’m tired, it just slipped out. I didn’t mean it.’ They remembered the tongue lashing Joe had given Pete after the best buy incident for scaring the shit out of them. Then he’d made Pete promise to never do that again. Pete had said ‘I won’t if you won’t’. It had taken .02 seconds for him to agree.  
‘So, what was the note about?’ That was why they loved Patrick. He always knew how to steer them gently back on track. Andy watched the ring as it made its way into Pete’s hand now that Patrick was finished looking at it.

‘It was a proposal.’ Every time Andy said the word, he tried to not to feel it. Sadly, he was getting better at that every time. One day, the word might have no effect at all.  
‘A proposal? Like, a business plan? Or another band?’ Patrick looked baffled. Pete, to his credit, had understood perfectly. He was smiling to himself, shaking his head as he held the ring up to dangle on the chain in front of him, spinning like a top.  
‘He finally did it. Joe finally put a ring on it. Man, that’s great! I’m so happy for you. Well, you know, all things considered; and I’m really sorry, too.’ Pete let the chain fall into his palm and handed it back to Andy.  
‘Thanks. He didn’t put a ring on it though. That’s why it’s on the chain. I couldn’t bring myself to actually wear it when he didn’t get the chance to propose.’ Andy clipped the chain around his neck where it belonged.  
‘I’m sorry.’ Patrick needn’t have said anything, because his hugs said it all, and right now, Andy couldn’t move because said singer was wrapped tightly around him. He managed to convince Patrick that sitting next to him would suffice just as well as sitting on top of him, and then Pete spoke up.  
‘He told me, years ago. We were at some party or club or whatever, and he was really high, so I brought him outside. He caught sight of you when I was dragging him out and he points at you, and says ‘That’s the man I want to marry.’ I just said ‘Sure you will, buddy. Let’s get some air.’ Jesus, I never thought he’d actually do it.’  
Patrick remembered a similar night, when Joe was a drunk, crying mess.  
‘I love Andy.’  
‘Of course you do. I love him too. Everyone loves Andy.’  
‘No, Patrick. I REALLY love him, like romantically and shit.’  
‘Oh.’  
‘I love him so much, and he’ll never love me back, because he’s straightedge and I’m just a stupid kid in his eyes, who (hic) drinks too much and takes too many drugs.’  
‘He doesn’t think you’re a stupid kid. No-one could ever think you were stupid, even if you do ramble when you’re drunk.’  
‘He’s straight (hic), and I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone. You can’t tell him. You gotta promise never to tell anyone (hic).’  
‘Oh, Joe, of course not.’  
‘You (hic) promise?’  
‘I promise.’ Patrick had let Joe cuddle up with him, and once they woke, life went on as if that night had never happened. Patrick decides it couldn’t hurt to tell a sanitized version of that conversation.

‘I knew he loved you. He told me once that he thought you’d never love him because you were straight.’ They all smile at how wrong Joe didn’t even know he was.  
‘I was never straight,’ Andy starts, ‘and for that matter, I never didn’t love him, either.’ The day he turned up shirtless to audition (more of a formality than anything, Pete had said), he was captivated by the guitarist with the frizzy brown hair and the eyes to die for. The exact moment that Joe looked up and smiled at him, he knew he was a little bit gone. Shit. He made that missed beat look intentional and the next thing he actually heard anyone say was ‘You’re hired’. Suddenly, being a drummer wasn’t quite so easy after all.  
‘I don’t think I ever thanked you for making me audition. That was the day I fell in love. He looked up at me mid-way through the song and I just…it was all over then. I never had a chance.’  
‘He had that effect on people,’ Matt returned and placed the tray of mugs on the table, ‘like the night he asked to marry you. I told him to ask your mom, but she’s thousands of miles away.’  
‘He asked you? What did he say ‘Please, Mr. Mixon, sir, may I marry your daughter?’ Pete joked.  
‘Close.’ Andy said, deadpan.  
‘What do you mean, like he actually asked all proper and old-school?’ Patrick looked like he was trying not to laugh.  
‘Yeah, pretty much.’ Matt launched into the story and not five minutes later, the remaining ¾ of Fall Out Boy were hunched over, holding their stomachs with laughter.  
‘The best part is I’m not even making this up. It’s all true. Now I wish I took photos.’  
‘No one could have known.’ Andy said. He didn’t need to say that he wished there were photos, too.  
‘I’m glad you told us.’ Pete said, smiling warmly.  
‘Me too, shit, did his parents know?’ Patrick’s eyes went comically wide for a moment.  
‘Yeah, I kinda had to tell them.’ Andy explained what happened the day Joe’s parents packed up his room, again tugging the jacket closed around him.  
‘I haven’t taken it off since.’  
‘But how are you doing, really? I mean, if you think-no one expects you to be okay. You know that? You don’t have to be fine.’ He loved Pete, he did. Patrick and Matt were nodding in agreement.  
‘I still get nightmares. About the bus. It’s like a slow-motion replay every night.’ Andy remembers too late that there were a lot of things he didn’t tell Patrick and Pete.  
‘I wasn’t turned away from the road like I said. I saw the whole thing, I tried to call out to him, but he couldn’t hear me. That stupid iPod. He had it turned right up.’  
Andy shrugged off Matt and Patrick’s hands on his back and pushed the palm of his hands into his eyes as his elbows rested on his knees. Pete and Patrick looked to Matt over Andy’s head. Matt stared back with the same expression and shrugged almost unperceivably. That was news to him too.  
Sometimes, though, the nightmare, the replay, happened when Andy was awake and he flinched as the bus slammed into the love of his life, again.  
‘It’s been two months, man. How much sleep are you getting?’ Pete looked concerned. It really wasn’t that big of a deal, it just hurt is all to see it every night.  
‘Sometimes I stay awake for a couple of days and get a good night’s sleep out of exhaustion.’ Andy shrugs.  
‘That’s not healthy, y’know. You need to look after yourself. Joe wouldn’t want this.’ Patrick rubbed at Andy’s shoulder and wasn’t shrugged off this time.  
‘I’m looking out for him. He’s not doing so bad anymore.’ Matt soothed.  
‘What do you mean, anymore? Andy, what haven’t you told us?’ Pete sounded like a parent who’d just gotten a call home from the school.  
‘I didn’t want to bother you. My depression came back, but Matt’s been looking after me. I haven’t been alone.’ He leaned into Matt then, who put a protective arm around him.  
‘Your depression? Whe-how long have you been dealing with it?’ Patrick asked gently.  
‘You could have come to us man. Now or then. You always said the same thing to me. That shit works both ways.’ Pete chided but not angrily.  
‘It was a while ago. When we broke up, it was so bad. The only thing that stopped me from-was that I didn’t want Joe to come home to…’ Andy can’t think of a nicer way to say my brains decorating the wall, so he says nothing. ‘He looked after me then. It’s harder this time without him.’ No-one points out that this time, Joe’s probably the cause.  
‘Dude, we broke up the band, we didn’t break up us. We’re sorry we haven’t checked in more, but we’re here now, okay?’ There’s no room left on either side of Andy, so Pete takes his lap instead. Andy nods, mumbles ‘Thank you’, settles his arms around Pete’s hip so he won’t fall. Andy knows from experience the edges on that coffee table are sharp.  
‘We didn’t know things were this bad or we would’ve been on a plane sooner. We love you man.’  
‘But your album.’ He knows there’s a recording studio somewhere where Pat’s supposed to be.  
‘Fuck my album. My album hasn’t been family since 2003.’ Andy, taken aback by Patrick swearing, doesn’t object as he finds himself in the middle of a cuddle pile, like they’re kids and ¾ drunk again.  
‘I love you guys too, but you’re crushing me.’ Pete climbs off Andy, pulls him to his feet and steals his seat. Andy yawns, brings a hand up to cover his mouth. ‘I’m tired, I should go to bed.’ He turns to leave, knowing Matt will fix them up in the spare room, but three sets of arms drag him down onto their laps and cage him in.  
‘Nope.’ Pete’s wearing a shit-eating grin.  
‘Not happening.’ Patrick’s looking equally pleased with himself.  
‘Sorry buddy.’ Andy turns to face Matt, who’s chest he’s leaning against anyway.  
‘You’re in on this, too?’ Andy pretends to look scandalized.  
‘Just shut up and sleep.’  
‘You’re all going to have stiff necks in the morning.’  
‘Shhh.’ Andy closes his eyes. It’s the first time he’s been cuddled to sleep since. He tries to forget that Joe’s not there, pull the jacket tight around himself and drift off.  
When he wakes, the sun is pouring into the room, a gorgeous pink/gold sunrise, the kind that Joe loved. He wakes them up to go sit on the roof and watch until the colors fade into the bright blue of day. He takes it as a sign that everything’s going to be alright.

He tries not to look satisfied when all three grumble of stiff necks at breakfast. It’s after that that Patrick pulls out a thumb drive he’s been wearing under his shirt.  
‘Um, I have these, uh, songs or something. Joe sent them to me. I have the originals and the stuff we changed. I thought maybe we could do something with them.’ It’s almost funny how quickly Pete and Andy are out of their seats, plates on the sideboard. ‘Just let me clean up, I’ll be right there.’ Andy says, starting the faucet and plugging the sink.  
‘Go.’ Matt says, ‘I’ll clean up.’ Andy will NOT look a gift horse in the mouth. They thunder up the stairs to plug in the thumb drive and hear the last things Joe was working on. They go track by track, listening on repeat until it starts to mean something.  
Track #1. There’s melody and no words but Andy can hear a beat in his head to go with it, the 1st or 2nd time he hears it. By the 6th, he has it all worked out.  
Track #2. It’s a little rougher, but there’s a strong chord progression and Patrick says he can make a proper melody out of it, and Joe sent him the lyrics he was working on for it. After the 8th time they play it, the lyrics begin to make sense.  
Track #3. It’s almost perfect. Just a little tightening up, fine tune the bass line, maybe change some chords to seventh to better fit the mood of the tune. ‘I have lyrics for this.’ Pete says the 4th or 5th time they play it. ’Someone give me a pen.’

They spent weeks fine tuning and practicing until their hands bled, until they were studio ready and absolutely perfect.  
In the end, the track list for disc one looks like this:  
Track #1  
Track #2  
Track #3  
They call it ‘The Untitled Fall Out Boy Project-From the Demos of Joe Trohman’.  
The track list for disc two looks like this:  
Track #1  
Track #2  
Track #3  
They call it ‘The Untitled Joe Trohman Project-The Demos’.  
They do an interview, just one, and they’re asked why they called it that.  
‘A title is supposed to sum up a song or an EP. In this case, we wanted to showcase Joe’s last work, which is why we released the originals as well. How do you sum up a man in a couple of titles?’ Pete shrugged ‘I guess we’d rather the music spoke for itself.’ The EP was a huge success, and every cent they made went to Joe’s family, who in turn donated it to the trauma unit that tried to save him.

If nothing else, they learned they could work together as a band again, and by the time Patrick’s album cycle was up, it was mid-2012 and time to make a choice.  
‘We can’t be Fall Out Boy. Ever again. That’s done.’ Pete said, finding no argument from Andy and Patrick, who nodded.  
‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t work together.’ Pete continued.  
‘No, it doesn’t. So what do we do?’ Andy asked.  
‘We make a new band, start over.’ Pete said. It was the logical conclusion.  
‘But it won’t be from the bottom…we saw that with Soul Punk.’ Patrick chipped in a little sadly. Technically speaking, the words ‘commercial failure’ applied.  
‘Ok, maybe we make Fall Out Boy, not Fall Out Boy. Change the name, keep the band on paper so that we can keep playing the songs if we want, like covers or something and his family still gets his cut, but we can start fresh without feeling guilty about it.’ Andy hoped that wasn’t too cold.  
‘No, you’re right. New name, new sound. We can’t start fresh if we go back to exactly how things were. A new start has to mean new.’ Patrick was on board.  
‘Pete?’ Andy pressed.  
‘I haven’t done this without him since I was 18. I don’t think I remember how.’  
‘We’ll figure it out. All of us, together.’  
‘Ok.’

That was what they did, in the January of 2013, Andy, Pete and Patrick returned, with a darker, heavier sound. That was an interesting first interview.  
‘So your new album is coming out, Android’s Dungeon. Where does that name come from?’ The interviewer asks.  
‘It’s a self-titled album. We’re changing our name.’ Pete chewed his gum, kind of annoyed at how woefully unprepared this chick was. It had been mentioned in the press release, on the website, social media and the pre-interview briefing.  
‘Oh, a new name, and why is that after all the success you’ve had as Fall Out Boy?’  
‘We’re not Fall Out Boy anymore.’ Pete began flatly. ‘Experiencing a loss that big, I mean, Joe and I, we’ve been friends since we were kids, I considered him family, we all did, still do-can really change you. It changed us as a band. It’s just not the same without all of us.’ He finished.

‘I don’t know if we’d have kept the name anyway, we’ve all changed as people since the last album cycle, even without losing Joe, but we’re not totally different either, so we kept the Simpsons theme because we wanted to show that some parts are different and some won’t ever change, or they will but in a way you can recognize.’ Patrick hoped his rambling made sense.

‘Yeah, we didn’t want to pretend like Fall Out Boy never happened. It was our lives, all our lives for 6 or 8 years before the hiatus, like Patrick and Joe were kids when they started, like high school kids. Pete was still in college, I was still young when I joined. I think we all grew up in that band. But there does come a time when you have to let go of that.’ That might be the most Andy’s ever said in an interview before.

‘Also, we wanted a self-titled album, and Android’s Dungeon just sounds so much cooler than Fall Out Boy.’ Pete and Andy snicker quietly at Patrick’s joke. The interviewer shoots them a Look. Well, if she wanted them to be serious the whole time, she should have been better prepared, and you know, READ THE PRESS RELEASE.

‘What were your musical influences?’  
‘Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers.’ Patrick said immediately.  
‘Really?’ The interviewer questioned.  
‘I’ve had ‘Free Fallin’’ on repeat for a week. Definitely one of our influences.’  
‘Fleetwood Mac, but before they all hated each other.’ Pete jumped in.  
‘The Beatles,’ Andy couldn’t wipe the smirk off his face. They were so glad this was a radio interview or they’d be in so much shit. ‘Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club.’  
‘A little bit of Queen.’ Patrick said, trying to look serious. ‘Adam Lambert is absolutely killing Freddie’s role.’  
‘Billy Joel.’ Andy bit his tongue and tried to dead pan. ‘We didn’t start the fire is a really great kind of political song, you know?’  
‘John Denver.’ Pete said. ‘So, if you can imagine like, all their greatest hits, yeah, the album sounds nothing like that.’ Pete laughed. ‘I guess you’ll have to buy it and see.’

The new album was a raging success and they launched into a tour. They weren’t surprised when kids in the crowd called out ‘Play Joe’s songs!’ So they did, every night that tour they played the 9 minutes of songs on disc one. But always somewhere in the middle of the show. Joe wasn’t an end or a beginning, he was a part of them.

 

FIN.


End file.
